Crafting with Norma - Magazine Butterflies

One of my favourite things about Norma is that she loves crafting like I do.  You might or might not remember Denise's fuzzy flip flops made with eyelash yarn.  And Norma had coat hangers made just the same way my Grandma made them - it was like coming home seeing those on my first visit!


This year she was making butterflies out of magazine pages.  Talk about a woman after my own heart!  And they are dead simple to make. 

It seemed rather dark in the house, so I've gone to the front porch,
natural light being best for photos.  But of course, where there
is light, there are also shadows. 

What you need:

- patterns to trace for the top (a square, basically) and the bottom (sort of lip shaped - see below) 

This shows you the relative size of the 'lips' to the square

Except that the 'lips' go at the 'bottom' or what Norma has
labelled the 'buns' when it is assembled.

- a black felt tip marker (preferably one that dries pretty quick, else you'll have black fingers; ask me how I know)

- some black chenille pipe cleaners (I found them on ebay pretty easy)

- magazine pages without writing on them, just pictures, the colours don't really matter that much, so long as you think they go together in a butterfly sort of way

These lovely ladies were in the 2001 issue of Eve magazine.

So you might gather, correctly, that I still have quite a few
magazines hanging around here. 

What you do:

- trace the pattern on your magazine page with the black marker - this gives a nicely defined edge to the wings - and cut them out




- fold the top (square) in half on the diagonal
- pleat first one half of the top working from the first fold to the end and then pleat the second half the same way
- repeat for the bottom piece (the 'lips) - fold diagonally, pleating the top and bottom from the centre fold

This is the bottom section pleated first, but you get the idea.
 Folding in half and pleating half at a time matters, according to the sewing ladies
whose butterflies didn't work the first time.

- cut about a 3-3.5 inch length of black pipe cleaner for the antennae - possibly 4 inches if making a larger butterfly

These patterns Norma gave me have been traced and cut
so many times the square is no longer square and
the bottom piece is also off centre.  But they still work.

- with the curved bit at the bottom, put the middle of the two pleated pieces together and twist the pipe cleaner around the narrow centre

- turn the ends of the pipe cleaner at an angle for antennae

- spread the pleated bit a little to show the wings

Start to finish less than 10 minutes!

Dead easy, like I said.  Norma was making them as decorations for her son's wedding the following week.  She had attached a bunch to her wrought iron screen by the stair well and another bunch of small ones to each of the silk flowers in an arrangement on her coffee table.  It was amazing how effective they were, these simple little things made with old magazines.





The ladies at the sewing group all wanted to have patterns because they had nieces or grandchildren who would enjoy this.  Bill's eldest daughter, Helen, runs a Brownie group and she thought this would be good for them as well.





I hope at some point to share some photos with Norma to show her what she started!